Carrier upgrade from 2 year contract - VZ

[puckhead193]

I'm really confused about the contract terms for upgrading to the iPhone 7.

In previous contracts, the carrier sold you the phone at a "discount" over the MSRP of the phone if you signed a contract for a 2 year service plan for that carrier. For the new contracts, the carriers will no longer be selling the phone with a discount.

The new contracts will now sell the phone in monthly installments called the iPhone upgrade program. The iPhone upgrade program will also include Apple Care. The monthly installments of the program will be in addition to the monthly fee for the service plan from the carrier.

If I want, the new plans would let me upgrade to a new phone after a year as long as I return the current phone and extend the iPhone upgrade program for another 24 months. Apparently, I could keep doing this every 12 months as long as this is the method of sale to which the carries stick.

This is where I'm confused, and I have the following questions:

• If the phones will no longer be sold at a discount along with a 2 year agreement, could I just upgrade my phone now to the iPhone 7 with the iPhone upgrade program! My original upgrade date isn't until late November
• Since I won't truly own the new phone via the iPhone upgrade program yet I will still pay the price of the phone over 24 months, doesn't it make sense to just pay the full price upfront for the phone to avoid being stuck on this plan?

I went to both the Apple Store and the Verizon store tonight. I was told two different stories about what I could do for the new phone, and neither of them made sense. One of the representatives also told me that the line fee would change with the phone depending on whether I purchase the iPhone upgrade program or not.

Anyway, I was hoping someone could help me clarify these issues,

Thanks!

 

[bigcstyle4]

You can buy the phone on the Apple Upgrade Program whenever you want since it's not tied to Verizon. When they talk about the line fee changing, that's assuming you're on one of the shared data plans from the past couple of years (either More Everything or The Verizon Plan). If you are, when your contract is up in November, your line access fee will change to either $15 or $20 instead of $40.

You can buy the phone now, but you'll still pay $40/month until your original contract runs out.